Leaning back into the future

Based on the company’s own press release, The Baron editorial, and other contributions, I still can’t get my lone remaining brain cell round the implications of the appointment of Andrew Rashbass. So what better solution than to contact the Reuters “media contact” highlighted at the bottom of the PR release. What indeed, you might ask, since this is the response from corporate affairs media contact David Crundwell: “Many thanks for your inquiry surrounding the appointment of Andrew Rashbass. However, we have nothing to add to the original announcement.”

Working on the principle that you need two good sources, I then contacted corporate affairs manager David Girardin and got this: “Thank you for your email and inquiry surrounding the appointment of Andrew Rashbass. While I appreciate that this will be frustrating for you, we have nothing to add to the original announcement.”

These are the issues I raised:

1) The company’s announcement quotes James C. Smith as saying “Andrew’s track record as CEO of The Economist Group speaks for itself. He brings to us a rare blend of commercial acumen, sensitivity to the best traditions of quality journalism and editorial integrity. And has a proven ability to build and lead great global business teams.”

Unfortunately it doesn’t speak for itself to me, and I am sure many other readers. Will he be setting the overall strictly journalistic content of the service, now that president and editor-in-chief Stephen Adler will report to him, or will he deal more with the marketing side, or both?

If he brings that “rare blend of commercial acumen, sensitivity to the best traditions of quality journalism and editorial integrity” to Reuters, that implies he will be doing something that may have been lacking to its fullest extent heretofore. What is that? Two years ago we had the so far unsuccessful pivot to the Pulitzers. Now this seems to be another pivot, but to what? Given Rashbass’s background, it must be something substantial.

One of the best ways of explaining appointments, or any change anywhere for that matter, is by comparing a future scenario with current practices, i.e. this is what happens now and this is how our goal and mission see the future happening. Both Crundwell and Girardin were asked to provide this.

2) The Baron editorial entitled “Leaning back into the future” cites David Thomson’s statement that the appointment underlines Reuters determination that its news “should not only fulfill its critical journalistic mission but also its potential in creating long-term value for our customers and shareholders.”

This implies that his job will be more concerned with finding new sources of revenue. Does this mean he will be concentrating on increasing Reuters digital services, the element that appears to be the gem in his crown at The Economist?

3) The Baron editorial also deals with the issue of so-called long-form articles, concluding: “Which way Reuters goes - the traditional, tightly edited, breaking news wire that fits the new appetite for grab-it-and-run consumption of news or more of the long form articles it has published over the last year or two - will be one of the strategic decisions the new chief executive is likely to face.”

Is this a correct assessment?

There is nothing wrong with long-form articles provided – and this is a major, major proviso – their content justifies their length, something that in my view has been lacking in a lot of Reuters’ current interminable so-called insight, exclusive and analysis pieces. There is a great difference between the finely crafted or truly informative on the one hand, and the finely, truly self-indulgent on the other, and unfortunately much of Reuters long-form pieces over the past two years, in my view, pertain to the latter school.

But more to the point, couldn’t Reuters’ strategy be to do both - the tightly edited grab-it-and-run news and the long-form articles, based on true merit of course - for a whole spectrum of audiences?

4) One of the comments on the editorial on The Baron, from Marcus Ferrar, states: “The Economist has been phenomenally successful in making much money out of intelligent news. Reuters ought to be able to excel at that too.”

What have we been doing heretofore? Haven’t we been doing that? I assume that some of the triumphalism over the announcement might be its implication that Thomson is still committed to Reuters and not to getting rid of it as a lacklustre profit centre.

Reuters announcement refers to itself as “the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals.” What in fact do we mean by “intelligent information” here? As opposed to dumb information? I assume it must mean news one can act on, but surely that is implied in the words news or information themselves, and I wonder whether these neologisms and jargon do more to obfuscate than to clarify.

5) Finally there has been quite a cut-back in some reporting staff, something that Adler has said is necessary to provide the money for the recruitment of higher-paid stars during the pivot to the Pulitzers era. According to The Guardian, in the year to 31 March 2012 Rashbass was paid a total remuneration of £1.05 million (about $1.62 million), including a bonus of £470,000, for his efforts leading the Economist group. One can only assume he will be paid a good deal more in his new job. When Adler was recruited, he was paid something in the region of $1.5 million including a signing bonus, and Adler will now report to Rashbass.

Has any figure yet been given for Rashbass’s new total emoluments? And will this expenditure also be at the expense of laying off lower paid but true and tried journalists as happened during the pivot to the Pulitzers? ■